Currently it is possible to geo-tag or geo-code a photograph in order to provide geographic information for the photograph. Commonly, this is done using a camera with a built-in GPS receiver, where the camera adds geographic coordinates such as latitude and longitude to the metadata of the photograph. Alternatives, however, could include inserting altitude and bearing, accuracy data and place names. Also, photographs can be geo-tagged subsequent to the taking of the photograph and this could be utilized if the camera itself does not have the specific geo-tagging capabilities.
An example of the use of geo-tagged photographs is within the Google Earth™ application in which the “gallery” option could be selected to show various icons or thumb nails for multi-media files such as pictures or videos which are geo-tagged to a particular location on the map. Selecting one of the pictures or other media files provides the user with a larger version of the thumbnail or if a thumbnail is not used then a copy of a higher resolution picture, or video among others. One restriction with Google Earth™ is that a user must manually upload photographs the user wishes to add to the program.
A problem exists on mobile devices where the computing environment is less than a personal computer. Further, on mobile devices, multiple geo-tagged photographs can exist and organization of these geo-tagged photographs is presently not performed well.